


Singing When We're Winning

by meretricula



Series: Yuletide Stories [34]
Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: F/F, Misses Clause Challenge, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28140726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meretricula/pseuds/meretricula
Summary: Four times Lou bought Debbie a drink, and one time Debbie stole one for Lou.
Relationships: Lou Miller/Debbie Ocean
Series: Yuletide Stories [34]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1590115
Comments: 13
Kudos: 58
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Singing When We're Winning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nerakrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerakrose/gifts).



Under other circumstances, Debbie would have been very pleased to have caught the attention of, objectively, the hottest bartender she had ever seen. When she was attempting to select a mark to rob in the bar employing said bartender, however, it added a certain level of complication that she wasn't sure she wanted. Her mother was always telling her that if she could just keep it simple and focus on the job at hand, she could be great at what she did instead of just good. 

On the other hand: uncomplicated was boring. _My break is in fifteen minutes, meet me out back_ , read the cocktail napkin underneath a drink she hadn't ordered. Debbie wasn't a fan of whiskey sours, but she gnawed meditatively on the cherry and then the toothpick for exactly fourteen minutes before she got to her feet. The bartender didn't so much as glance her way as Debbie headed for the exit. 

"What's a nice girl like you doing in an alley like this?" Debbie asked, two minutes later, pinned up against a dubiously clean brick wall a few feet away from a definitely-not-clean dumpster. She twisted her hands in the bartender's hair and wondered idly what color it was under the red dye, and then whether the bartender, who was quite tall, would be able to support her weight if Debbie wrapped her legs around her waist, and then she was being kissed very aggressively and for a few blessed seconds she was too occupied to think about anything else. 

"As it happens," the bartender said, in between delicate nips at Debbie's throat and ear, "I'm here for the same reason as you." 

"Kissing beautiful women?" 

"Stealing from drunk tourists," she corrected. Her accent was interesting, like there was something hiding behind the forgettable midwestern vowels threatening to break through. "I have a _system_ , which took a not-inconsiderable amount of time and effort to establish, and _you_ are not going to barge in here and wreck it."

Playing innocent had never really been Debbie's style. "I like a woman who speaks her mind," she said, punctuating her sentence with a quick kiss. "If you're worried about me screwing up what you've got going, why don't I give you a hand instead of working separately? For a fifty-fifty split I'll even let you call the shots." 

"Are you out of your mind? I've already done all the work, what exactly are you bringing to the table that you think merits an even split? Eighty-twenty, and only because I don't want to have to find a new place to work." 

"Mmm, I think I can contribute a lot! Good looks, natural charisma, and…" Debbie held up the bartender's wallet, which she'd liberated from the front pocket of her very tight jeans. "Very smooth hands." Ignoring the bartender's look of outrage, she began flipping through it, stopping on a New Jersey driver's license. "You know, I don't mean to criticize but you really don't kiss like a Louisa." 

"It's Lou," she said, curt but not as annoyed as she was pretending to be. Debbie let her snatch the wallet back and smiled. "And you're not getting more than thirty percent. My break's almost up — come back and wait at the bar, I'll signal you when a decent mark shows up." 

"Lou, I think this must be the beginning of a beautiful friendship," said Debbie, cheerfully ignorant of any potential prophetic impact, and followed her inside. 

*

"Here," Lou said. The paper bag in her arms thumped down on their kitchen table, which wobbled dangerously but ultimately lived to fight another day. Debbie hated that fucking table, and the shitty tiny stove with one broken burner, and everything else about this garbage apartment in New Jersey. "Coors was on sale." 

"Exciting," Debbie said. "Not-quite-as-shitty-as-usual beer." 

"'Thank you so much for thinking of me, Lou.' 'Oh, it's a pleasure and a privilege to consider your happiness, darling.'" 

"What do you want from me, Lou?" Debbie asked. She wasn't sure she was even angry, really. She was just tired. 

"I don't know, Debbie. What do _you_ want?" 

"I want us not to have to drink cheap beer! I want you to be able to quit bartending! I want to do something _impressive_ instead of cheating at bingo! I want to not live in some _shithole_ in fucking _New Jersey_ where we can barely make rent!" 

Lou crossed her arms over her chest, her face frozen in the disapproving look that she'd been wearing more and more often lately, whenever Debbie started suggesting jobs. It made Debbie feel like setting something on fire. "I'm sorry that you don't like my job or the beer or the apartment that _I pay for_ ," she said, stiff and sarcastic and probably hurt underneath it, which was even worse. "But your idea of impressive is reckless and it's going to get you caught." 

"Well maybe if you would help — "

"I am not going down with you," Lou said flatly, "and I'm not giving you the rope to hang yourself with." 

Debbie reached for a beer, playing for time. Sometimes she could talk Lou around, if Lou secretly wanted to do the fun thing she was telling Debbie not to do for boring ordinary-person reasons like not having enough money or not wanting to get killed. This didn't feel like one of those times. "That's it, then?" 

"That's it." 

Lou relented as far as popping the top off of Debbie's beer when she held it out to her, but no further. "All right," Debbie said. There were other people she could tap. She was an Ocean: she wasn't going to settle for obscurity, even for Lou. 

*

Solitary had been pretty relaxing, all told. Debbie was a social creature, but the complex interpersonal drama among her cellmates was distracting her from plotting the perfect revenge heist — which she _was_ going to pull off as soon as she got out, and then she would have a lot of money and other nice things and also Claude Becker was going to be _very_ sorry he'd fucked with her. It gave her a little shiver of almost sexual pleasure, thinking about all the different things she could steal and the expression on his weaselly little face. 

First she had to get there, of course, but it didn't hurt to visualize the end goal occasionally. Good for motivation. Debbie had time to get it right, but she couldn't lose her focus. 

Her favorite guard was on escort duty the morning Debbie returned to her cell — not the one who was cheapest to bribe, but the most reliable one, the one who had taken one look at Debbie and known that she was good for what she promised. "Package for you," she said under her breath, and then arranged things so that Debbie got a few last minutes alone before her cellmates finished breakfast. 

Smuggling anything in was expensive; Debbie had no idea what Lou must have paid to get her a box of tiny bottles of alcohol. _Nice_ alcohol, even, artisanal tequila and pretentious small-batch gin with the juniper berries still floating in it. Debbie wasn't going to drink any of it, of course. If she played her cards right she would be running the black market by the time she traded the lot in for favors, which was worth considerably more than sentiment and was what Lou would have wanted her to do with the gift, anyway. Right at that moment, though, she almost wished she could. 

It wasn't the same as bellying up to the bar when Lou was working and watching those beautiful hands around a cocktail shaker, waiting for the perfect drink to put her in character for the night and a sidelong glance to point out their mark. It wasn't an apology, either: that wasn't Lou's style. It was a promise, and Debbie could wait to collect. 

Debbie smiled as she packed her loot away, already plotting out her next moves, who to trade with and what for. With Lou back on board, the longterm plan would be — well, not simpler, maybe, but more likely to succeed. And also a lot more fun. 

*

It was interesting, having friends. Debbie knew a lot of people, and she was friendly with most of them, but she didn't usually _hang out_ with people who weren't family or Lou. (Lou was family but in a different way.) Maybe it was all that time in prison, or the size of the job they'd pulled off, or just getting old, but she found that she enjoyed spending time at Nine Ball's bar, just talking. Not even shop-talk, most of the time — gossip, and little stories about their families, sometimes books. Debbie had gotten into Agatha Christie in prison. Nine Ball read a lot of political theory. 

Mostly it was Amita and Constance, but Tammy dropped by when she was on business trips. Once, Daphne and Rose managed to sneak past the paparazzi and spent an entire afternoon workshopping Amita's Tinder profile, which had been — interesting, in its original, Constance-approved form. Lou was still traveling. Every few days, a postcard with no return address showed up in the mail. Debbie missed her, but she was used to that. 

" — and the Parent-Teacher Association is a _nightmare_ , of course," Tammy was saying, waving her half-empty wineglass for emphasis. "The back-biting over a bake sale, you would not believe. I'm boycotting. He made brownies. They were too good for the PTA, I should have kept them for me." 

"You actually love him, don't you," Debbie mused aloud. 

Tammy frowned. "I… love my husband? Yes?" 

"I'm asking! You seemed like you were bored out of your mind!" 

"I mean, moving to suburbia was a fucking mistake, no question." Tammy eyed what was left in her glass and then knocked it back, decisively. "I cannot wait until the kids are old enough that we can move back to the city. But it's not… you have to know what you can put up with. I thought I could do the suburbs and the kids and retirement at the same time, and I can't. It's a partnership. You have to compromise. He's picking up the parts I can't handle anymore." 

"It sounded like you needed to compromise a little less, last time I was out there." 

Tammy shrugged. "Part of compromising is figuring out what's non-negotiable. It's like Lou wanting to go off and see the world while your twisty little brain stays home and figures out what to steal next, or whatever. You could have gone with her, but you didn't. It doesn't mean your relationship is over, it's just agreeing to share what you can and let the other person do the things they want to, even if it means you don't do them together. Like the fucking PTA meetings. He is fucking _welcome to them_ and he can tell me about them when he gets home." 

"Gone… with her," Debbie repeated, and then slumped down to rest her forehead on the bar. "I can't believe I'm taking relationship advice from a heterosexual. It doesn't _count_ if your bisexual exception is me," she added, preempting what she knew was going to be a long lecture. When Tammy got going, she kept going. 

"You don't know what I got up to when you were in prison," Tammy said primly. 

"I know exactly what you got up to, you married a man, made two babies and moved to a McMansion in Connecticut." 

"Mm. Touche." 

"You ready for another?" Nine Ball asked, presumably on her way back from the pool table. From the commiserating tone of Amita's voice behind her, Constance had lost. Badly. Debbie wasn't sure why she kept insisting on having a rematch every time they went to the bar, unless it was one of those things where people liked flinging themselves at brick walls to see how hard they'd crash this time — which, Constance being Constance, wasn't outside the realm of possibility. 

"I'm good," Tammy said. "I need a clear head to fully enjoy the downfall of the great Debbie Ocean." 

"Shut up," Debbie mumbled into the bar. 

" _Relationship advice_ ," Tammy cooed, ignoring her. "From a _heterosexual_." 

"I will kill you, Tam-Tam." 

"You would never, I'm too good at my job." 

"Uh-huh," said Nine Ball. Debbie, still face-down on the bar, could hear her open and shut the refrigerator and pour something into a glass. She lifted her head just as Nine Ball slid a very pink drink in front of her. "Sex on the Beach." 

"Thank you?" Debbie took a single, careful sip and then put the glass back down. 

"It's not from me," Nine Ball said. "Lou texted and asked me to make one for you. She's paying me back for the grapefruit juice, I don't stock it usually." 

" _Lou_ asked you to make me a — "

"Sex on the Beach," Nine Ball repeated, expressionless. 

"Com-pro-mise," Tammy sing-songed in her ear. 

"Right," said Debbie. She took another sip, which was every bit as disgusting as the first, and gave up on maintaining an appearance of dignity. "Hey, did she by any chance mention where she is right now?" 

*

The first thing Debbie saw when she finished getting through customs at the Macau airport was Lou, elegant as ever in a powder-blue linen suit, and it was like she temporarily lost her mind: she had launched herself across the room and tackled Lou into a wall before she even knew she was planning to do it. "Did you miss me, baby?" she asked, when she was done burying her face in Lou's neck and — embarrassingly — inhaling the smell of her skin. Fuck dignity, she never wanted to lose this again. She wanted to smell Lou every day for the rest of her life. 

"Oh, maybe a little bit, darling," Lou said. There was the tiniest quiver in her voice, like she was trying to keep from laughing. Debbie decided not to hold it against her. "Come on, you'll like the car I rented." 

Lou had apparently rented a bright red Ferrari. Debbie contemplated trying to show Lou how much she liked it immediately, but Lou also sounded pleased about the hotel, and they would have a lot more room to maneuver in a bed, anyway. It was a nice ride: Lou left the top down the entire way and the radio set to cheerful Cantonese pop music, and drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on Debbie's leg except when she had to shift gears. 

The hotel was even nicer, which Debbie approved of except for the faint crawling horror at the idea that Lou had actually _paid_ for it. The money itself had been stolen, she reminded herself. That probably made it all right. And the bed was _very_ large. She was _compromising_ , which meant sometimes not stealing things, if Lou didn't want her to. 

"So, what's the plan for tomorrow?" she asked, once they had demonstrated their mutual appreciation for the bed. "Did you want to go for a drive, or to the beach...?" 

Lou propped herself up on an elbow, frowning. "You want to go to the _beach_? Macau has some of the most expensive casinos in the world." 

"Lou. Sweetheart. Love of my life." Debbie winced. "I love you more than anything but I don't think I can set foot in a casino and not steal something. The beach is probably safer." 

"I'm sorry, can you back up to the part where you think I brought you to _Macau_ for our _honeymoon_ so you could _not steal something_?" 

"You hate when I steal things! You went on your road trip of discovery without me! You asked Nine Ball to make me a Sex on the Beach! Also, when did we get married?" 

"You stole me six pounds of diamonds and the crown jewels, I thought the white dress and ceremony were a little superfluous," Lou said tartly. "I do not hate when you steal things, I hate when you get caught and sent to prison. I have decided that the solution to this problem is that I will collaborate on all your plans going forward, so you don't get caught. I didn't invite you to come on my road trip because you don't like being on a motorcycle for more than an hour at a time. And the operative element of the drink was the sex, not the beach, but I can see, in retrospect, how that might not have been clear in context." 

Debbie contemplated for a moment, keeping her eyes fixed on the ceiling so as not to be distracted by the view of Lou's breasts. "This is what I get for listening to relationship advice from Tammy," she concluded. 

"Darling, Tammy retired and moved to fucking Connecticut for a man, please don't ever take her advice about anything. Now, I have spent a not-inconsiderable amount of time planning out the ideal sequence of heists, given the location of the targets and the available personnel, so -- " 

"Wait, wait!" Debbie scrambled across the bed to stop Lou from getting up and retrieving what were no doubt meticulous notes. "I need to buy you champagne. We got married and I didn't even know! Champagne and just-married sex and _then_ we can figure out the best way to rob a casino." 

"Seven casinos," Lou corrected, handing over the bedside phone. 

"I love you so fucking much, baby," Debbie said fervently. "Yes, hello, room service? Can you send up a bottle of your best champagne? Yeah, just charge it to the room. Thanks." 

"I notice that you're buying me a drink with my own money," Lou said once Debbie had hung up the phone, as she pinned Debbie back to the bed. 

"Baby." Debbie reached up to hold Lou's beautiful, beloved face, staggered all over again by how lucky she was. How lucky she'd made herself. "You know it wouldn't be me if I didn't steal it."

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Debbie is wrong to police Tammy's sexuality! In this house we believe people when they say they aren't straight!  
> 2\. Is the title taken from Chumbawumba's magnum opus, Tubthumping? Mind your business.


End file.
